


The World as a Woman

by mautadite



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bathing, F/F, Mild Sexual Content, On the Run, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:34:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22701808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mautadite/pseuds/mautadite
Summary: Aoife rises as Chisimdi approaches, water streaming from her naked body. Chisimdi waves her down.“Enjoy your bath, you silly creature.”
Relationships: Dethroned and Dishonored Queen/Lone Loyal Female Knight
Comments: 10
Kudos: 92
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	The World as a Woman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CelestialArcadia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelestialArcadia/gifts).



> Enjoy!

Miraculously, there is a hot spring behind the inn. Aoife secures their room, sees Chisimdi settled into bed, tends to the horse and makes a few rounds of the inn, noting all the entrances and exits, observing the two other patrons, asking the innkeeper a few idle questions that tell her everything she needs to know. This done, she heads to the back, finds a secluded pool, and strips down to her bare skin, leaving her sword and shield leaning against a rock. Then she eases her body in, feeling the hot water envelope cuts and bruises both new and old.

Chisimdi finds her there an hour later.

The queen doesn’t look much well rested. Aoife had been surprised to find her drowsy when they’d arrived at the inn. It had been a hard, long ride, fighting to make sure that they made it there before sundown. Aoife hadn’t wanted to take the risk on the roads, especially after their latest skirmish with the bounty hunters. The poor chestnut had been foaming at the mouth by the time they disembarked. Aoife had brushed, watered and fed her well, and gotten one of the stable boys to ferret out some apples as a treat.

Aoife rises as Chisimdi approaches, water streaming from her naked body. Chisimdi waves her down. When Aoife ignores that, and starts to get out of the water, the queen grasps her by the shoulders, and pushes her back down. They both know that Chisimdi doesn’t actually have the strength to force Aoife into anything; they both also know that Aoife would walk across the bottom of the Sunset Sea if Chisimdi asked it of her. Aoife sits.

“Enjoy your bath, you silly creature,” Chisimdi murmurs in her musical accent, settling herself on a nearby rock. “You deserve it.”

Aoife observes her, gimlet-eyed. The queen is still in her travelling clothes; a worn dress of burnt orange that makes her dark skin glow, a hood thrown over the hair that she keeps braided close to her scalp. Resting her chin in her palm, she looks out across the water, her slim body posed gracefully, head angled in a way that accentuates her long neck. Aoife frowns. There are lines and circles around Chisimdi’s eyes, and not all of them are due to age.

She rests a wet hand lightly on Chisimdi’s leg.

“You should try to get some more rest, Simi.”

The queen shakes her head slowly, not looking at her. 

“I can’t, not right now.” A glance. “I’d rather be here with you, anyway.”

Aoife’s heart squeezes. She wonders if this is how it always feels, having it in the palm of someone else’s hand.

She had been ten years old, on the day that King Cormac married the pretty young queen, daughter of some rich, foreign emperor. Even then she’d had dreams of becoming a knight, of rising through the ranks to become one of the fabled protectors of Kenmare. Her dreams had not included being assigned to the queen, rather than the king, or becoming so close to a woman who was almost ten years her senior, or falling in love with her after years of devotion. That ten year old girl had not seen herself here, twenty years into the future, on the run with her closest friend and lover, fleeing the king she’d once so revered and his newer, younger queen.

When she thinks of what Cormac and Iyo had done to Chisimdi, the anger threatens to blind her, and she wishes that Chisimdi had ordered her to fight rather than fly, that day at the foot of the temple. It had been a deft little scheme: a fabricated plot to seize Cormac’s throne, all laid at Chisimdi’s feet. As far as Cormac is concerned, Chisimdi is guilty of so many other things that it was justifiable: not desiring him as he wanted, her infertile womb, having a lover. The fact that he’d had his fair share of women over the years apparently didn’t signify.

Aoife had gotten them out of the city that day, fought past the royal guards, secured them passage to the King’s Road. That had been two years ago, and they’re running still.

Aoife rubs Chisimdi’s leg. The queen looks across at her again, her eyes this time alighting on the ugly purple bruise on Aoife’s neck. Her shoulders sink.

“It’s nothing,” Aoife says, before the queen can make a comment. “Barely hurts.”

“You always say that,” says Chisimdi. Her voice is a medley of exasperation, amusement and sadness. “About all of them.”

“Well, I am quite strong, you know,” she quips. “Incredibly tough.”

Chisimdi smiles, puts all her fondness into it. Most days, Aoife doesn’t know what she loves best about the queen; it changes day to day. Right now, it’s her dimples. They’re big and deep enough to empty a well.

“My knight in droplets of water,” she teases. Aoife basks in the moment, grinning back at her.

“Come on.” Aoife tugs her leg. “Join me.”

Chisimdi considers it, dips her hand into the spring to check the warmth, makes a show of peering into the depths, looks around to verify that the grounds are still deserted. Soon enough, she rises to her feet to slip out of her clothes. She doesn’t need help with her dress; it’s a simple one that can be tugged over the head. Aoife is able to remain where she is, and watch the queen disrobe. It’s as much a pleasure and a novelty as it had been the first time, four sweet years ago. The signs of ageing are more visible on her naked body: spots on her thighs, the slackness near her breasts, a few grey strands in the thatch of hair between her legs. To Aoife, she’s still the loveliest woman in creation.

She sinks into the pool. Aoife creates space for her, backing up to a comfortable ledge where she can sit, and have Chisimdi perch neatly between her spread legs. The water laps at the tops of their shoulders; the ends of Chisimdi’s braids float on the surface. Aoife wraps her arms around her queen, locks their ankles together, and buries her face in the warm brown neck. Chisimdi laughs.

“You’re like a limpet,” she chides.

“I don’t know what that is,” says Aoife, and kisses the spot where she rests. Chisimdi shivers.

“It’s like… like a little sea snail. Known for sticking to things.” She elbows Aoife in the abdomen playfully. 

“I do quite like sticking to you,” Aoife admits, nuzzling along her neck like this patch of skin is the night sky, and it is her duty to proliferate it with starry kisses. She exults in Simi’s quiet moan of responsiveness.

“You… you find them all along the coasts in Famfar,” she continues distractedly, angling her neck for Aoife’s mouth. “Clinging to walls and rocks. The fisherfolk make a kind of stew out of them. Maybe one day I can show you one.”

Aoife raises her head to peer at her, resting her chin on Chisimdi’s shoulder.

“We could go there, you know,” she suggests, not for the first time. “To Famfar. If we take ship at Westport we could be there in two weeks.”

Not for the first time, the queen shakes her head; a gentle but immovable veto.

“Perhaps when my nephew becomes emperor. While my brother rules, I’m afraid we really will find no welcome there.”

It’s an old dispute between them. Aoife maintains that they should try it; it’s the one place Cormac wouldn’t be bold enough to look for them, and those shores are supposed to be riddled with caves, perfect for hiding. But Chisimdi is adamant about not putting a toe back onto her native shores. Not yet, not while her tyrannical brother lives. And as in all things, Aoife bends to her desire.

It doesn’t matter, after all, where they are, what dangers they face, who Cormac sends after them. Every time Aoife’s sword hand sings, it’s with Chisimdi in mind. When she was knighted, she’d been named one of the protectors of the realm. And now, her realm is Chisimdi, her forever queen.

They soak quietly for a time. The skirmish with the bounty hunters had only been a day ago, and then there had been their long, punishing ride. Aoife has aches aplenty, but the hot water seems to melt beneath her skin and into her muscles in just the way she needs it. She keeps Chisimdi pressed up against her chest, dusting kisses along her throat and jaw. One of her hands cups a breast under the water, caressing it idly, rolling the tight, hard nipple between her fingertips, listening to Chisimdi’s occasional sounds of pleasure. The fingertips of her other hand travel lower, exploring the line of Chisimdi’s body: the curve of her waist, the flare of her hips, the heft of her thighs. Sometimes she lets her fingers drift between Chisimdi’s legs, lightly, casually, just moving with the water, and the queen groans in quiet appreciation.

She throws her head back against Aoife’s shoulder, eyes closed in bliss.

“Maybe you’ll send me to sleep after all,” she mumbles.

“Gracious,” Aoife laughs at her ear, pinching her on the waist. “I’m so flattered, Simi.”

Another poke to her abdomen as the queen smiles.

“You know what I mean. I didn’t ask you to stop.”

Kissing her ear, and neck, and jaw, and lips, Aoife resumes her attention to the queen’s breast. She kisses a trail back down to her shoulder, and then rests her chin there again, so she can watch her tanned fingers on the dark flesh. She keeps her fondling soft and light, not going anywhere with it, just loving the feel of her.

Chisimdi sighs happily, and tilts her head to kiss Aoife’s cheek.

“Maybe,” she says in a meandering way, “maybe we can continue going north. We haven’t been past the Windward Mountains since last year, and this time, we can go even further. Lose ourselves in the woods up there, build a little cottage, hunt rabbits and grow potatoes.”

It's a nice little dream, one that won’t come true. They both know they can’t stay in one place for too long.

“Maybe we can,” Aoife says anyway, thumb flicking back and forth on Chisimdi’s nipple.

“And maybe,” the queen continues, wiggling back against her, “you can teach me how to handle a sword, and I can be of some use, the next time they come for us.”

Aoife grunts. “Simi, that isn’t necessary, you don’t have to—”

“But you _can_ teach me, can’t you?” Chisimdi interrupts, turning to look at her with fierce, pleading eyes. “I’m getting older, but I can still learn, can’t I?”

Almost immediately, Aoife relents. “Yes, of course you can. I’m sorry, dearheart, I didn’t mean it that way.”

The endearment, so rarely used, softens her, and she leans back against Aoife’s chest. Aoife leaves off her caressing to wrap Chisimdi in a hug, tight and secure, because it’s what she seems to need most at the moment. Chisimdi grabs one of her hands, brings it out of the water to kiss her scarred knuckles almost reverently. Indeed, those plush lips on her skin are a benediction unlike any other.

“And maybe,” Chisimdi continues, speaking more softly than ever, “I can learn to save you as much as you’ve saved me.”

Emotion lances through Aoife’s heart. She hugs her tighter, loving her so much she can’t contain it. She puts her lips to Chisimdi’s ear, and lets all of her conviction ring through, like a song from her sword hand.

“You already have, my Queen.”


End file.
